The gold-plated timepiece, which is four feet across, was officially unveiled at Corpus Christi College last night by Stephen Hawking, the city's world-famous maths professor.
As the News has reported, the mechanical clock has been designed and paid for by Dr John Taylor, an honorary fellow at the college, and it has pride of place on the college's new library, which is also funded by him.
The clock is powered by a pendulum, driven by a mechanism in the shape of a giant grasshopper.
The grasshopper was sculpted by Cambridge-based artist Matthew Lane Sanderson, and the whole timepiece was put together by Huxley Bertram Engineering at Cottenham.
It has no hands or digital numerals. Instead there is a series of slits cut into the face, and blue LED lights are arranged behind the slits, which run round rapidly in concentric circles and pause at the correct hour, minute, and second. Its massive round face was engineered from a single sheet of stainless steel, and gold-plated.
Dr Taylor told the News: "It is my way of giving something back to my old college and to Cambridge - and I expect the clock will last for 200 years."
Helped by a carer, Prof Hawking pressed a button to reveal it to a waiting crowd of onlookers and college staff, headed by the President of Corpus Christi, Prof Christopher Andrew.
The inauguration was followed by a lecture by former Astronomer Royal Sir Arnold Wolfendale.
Unveiling the clock, Prof Hawking said: "I have been particularly concerned with time. Why does time go forward? Does time have a beginning and an end? Can one go sideways in time? Some of the answers are given in my book, A Brief History of Time.
"One of the challenges has been to measure the passage of time accurately. Dr John Taylor's invention is a true mechanical spring-driven clock, but it also uses modern technology, high-precision engineering, and high-quality craftsmanship to considerable effect."
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By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 12:45AM BST 20 Sep 2008
The Corpus Clock, a true mechanical mechanism, which is wound up by an electric motor, has no hands Photo: PA
The £1 million Corpus Clock has been invented and designed by Dr John Taylor for Corpus Christi College Cambridge for the exterior of the college's new library building.
It has no hands but displays the time on its four-foot wide face by using a series of lights denoting hours minutes and seconds.
Dr Taylor, a former student at Corpus Christi and now an inventor and horologist, created it as a tribute to John Harrison, the pioneer of longitude, who took 36 years to build one clock and he was still calibrating it when he died at his home in London on March 24, 1776, his 83rd birthday....>more
From The Times
September 19, 2008
Cambridge reveals the time-eater, Chronophage, devourer of hours
Lucy Bannerman
Unlike conventional timepieces, the extraordinary “Chronophage”, does not use hands or digital numerals to show the time.
Instead, it relies on a mechanical monster – part demonic grasshopper, part locust – that rocks back and forth along a golden disc, edged like a lizard’s spine. By a complex feat of engineering, its movement triggers blue flashing lights that dart across the clockface, letting students know if they are late for a lecture.
About two metres in diameter, the clock is made from discs of stainless steel and plated with 24-carat gold. With each slackening of the monster’s jaw, and release of its claws, another second is devoured. Each new hour is signalled by the rattle of a chain on an unseen coffin to remind passers-by of their mortality.
The timepiece is completely accurate only every five minutes. The rest of the time, the pendulum pauses then corrects itself as if by magic. The blue lights play optical illusions on the eye, whirring around the disc one second, then appearing to freeze the next. The effect is hypnotic.
The clock is the brainchild of John Taylor, an inventor who made his fortune developing the kettle thermostat after graduating from Corpus Christi in the 1950s. A long-time admirer of Harrison, Dr Taylor, 72, said that he wanted to make a clock that would revolutionise the art of timekeeping. So he took the so-called “grasshopper escapement”, a tiny device invented by Harrison hidden away inside 18th-century clocks, and turned it into the time-eating insect that can be seen today on the college wall. The ultimate aim, explains Dr Taylor, was to create a timepiece that kept time while, paradoxically, showing it, as they say, to be relative.
“Clocks are fixed, whereas we all know, time is fluid. It drags and it flies. Like Einstein said, an hour sitting next to a pretty girl can be like a minute, and a minute sitting on a hot stove can seem like an hour. I wanted this clock to reflect that, to play tricks with observers.” Dr Christopher de Hamel, Fellow Librarian at Corpus Christi, said: “I wanted it to be a monster, because time itself is a monster . . . It is horrendous, and horrible, and beautiful. It reminds me of the locusts from the Book of Revelations.
“It lashes its tongue, and flicks its eyes at you. It’s bonkers.” More
Last Updated: 12:45AM BST 20 Sep 2008
The Corpus Clock, a true mechanical mechanism, which is wound up by an electric motor, has no hands Photo: PA
The £1 million Corpus Clock has been invented and designed by Dr John Taylor for Corpus Christi College Cambridge for the exterior of the college's new library building.
It has no hands but displays the time on its four-foot wide face by using a series of lights denoting hours minutes and seconds.
Dr Taylor, a former student at Corpus Christi and now an inventor and horologist, created it as a tribute to John Harrison, the pioneer of longitude, who took 36 years to build one clock and he was still calibrating it when he died at his home in London on March 24, 1776, his 83rd birthday....>more
From The Times
September 19, 2008
Cambridge reveals the time-eater, Chronophage, devourer of hours
Lucy Bannerman
Unlike conventional timepieces, the extraordinary “Chronophage”, does not use hands or digital numerals to show the time.
Instead, it relies on a mechanical monster – part demonic grasshopper, part locust – that rocks back and forth along a golden disc, edged like a lizard’s spine. By a complex feat of engineering, its movement triggers blue flashing lights that dart across the clockface, letting students know if they are late for a lecture.
About two metres in diameter, the clock is made from discs of stainless steel and plated with 24-carat gold. With each slackening of the monster’s jaw, and release of its claws, another second is devoured. Each new hour is signalled by the rattle of a chain on an unseen coffin to remind passers-by of their mortality.
The timepiece is completely accurate only every five minutes. The rest of the time, the pendulum pauses then corrects itself as if by magic. The blue lights play optical illusions on the eye, whirring around the disc one second, then appearing to freeze the next. The effect is hypnotic.
The clock is the brainchild of John Taylor, an inventor who made his fortune developing the kettle thermostat after graduating from Corpus Christi in the 1950s. A long-time admirer of Harrison, Dr Taylor, 72, said that he wanted to make a clock that would revolutionise the art of timekeeping. So he took the so-called “grasshopper escapement”, a tiny device invented by Harrison hidden away inside 18th-century clocks, and turned it into the time-eating insect that can be seen today on the college wall. The ultimate aim, explains Dr Taylor, was to create a timepiece that kept time while, paradoxically, showing it, as they say, to be relative.
“Clocks are fixed, whereas we all know, time is fluid. It drags and it flies. Like Einstein said, an hour sitting next to a pretty girl can be like a minute, and a minute sitting on a hot stove can seem like an hour. I wanted this clock to reflect that, to play tricks with observers.” Dr Christopher de Hamel, Fellow Librarian at Corpus Christi, said: “I wanted it to be a monster, because time itself is a monster . . . It is horrendous, and horrible, and beautiful. It reminds me of the locusts from the Book of Revelations.
“It lashes its tongue, and flicks its eyes at you. It’s bonkers.” More
From
| Trendwatch | |||
| By Wolfgang Gruener | |||
| Friday, September 19, 2008 17:13 | |||
Cambridge (UK) – Physicist Stephen Hawking helped unveil what may be most scary clock in the world. The Corpus Clock, located at the University of Cambridge, visualizes the belief that time will always be against us. A grasshopper/locust sits atop the dial, eating away every second of our life, swallowing minutes and hours with pleasure. You could get very depressed watching this $2 million clock tick away – or you may see this time-eater as an image to highlight the value of every second that is given to us. The unusual clock, designed by John Taylor and unveiled by Stephen Hawking, took five years to create and makes a big statement through its gold-plated, almost 4 foot-wide dial and a gold-encrusted monster, part grasshopper, part locust sitting on top of it. As the time passes, the grasshopper/locust turns the dial, sixty times a second, and eats minutes and hours with opening jaws and shaking tail. The time (hours, minutes, seconds) is shown through slits in the dial, which are illuminated with blue LEDs. "It is terrifying, it is meant to be," Taylor told The Guardian. "Basically I view time as not on your side. He'll eat up every minute of your life, and as soon as one has gone he's salivating for the next. It's not a bad thing to remind students of. I never felt like this until I woke up on my 70th birthday, and was stricken at the thought of how much I still wanted to do, and how little time remained." "I also wanted to depict that time is a destroyer - once a minute is gone you can't get it back,” he said. Taylor, who amassed a fortune by inventing and selling kettle thermostats, said that it took 200 people and an investment of £1 million, almost $2 million, to build the lock. Its electric motor is expected to last for about 25 years. Link | |||
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